


The Price of Freedom (or: Heaven and Hell Come to Call)

by Raichel



Series: Not Quite So Safe [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Also known as, Angst, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon, but a lot of the word count is committed to the hurting, but also Crowley and Aziraphale love each other a whole lot, but if you want a lot of violence it also probably isn't your fic, heaven and hell are back and they're pissed, idk if it's really graphic depictions of violence but better safe than sorry, if you don't want any violence this ain't your fic, if you're looking for mild torture in service of drama THIS IS YOUR FIC BABY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-25 12:53:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19746163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raichel/pseuds/Raichel
Summary: The apocalypse was averted roughly a decade ago, now.Crowley and Aziraphale knew that their time together was limited before heaven and hell would come after them again; they had rubbed their superiors too many wrong ways. Even without using hellfire or holy water on them, heaven and hell can't let them stand. Not without being suitably punished. Not without being suitably removed.Now Crowley and Aziraphale's days are numbered.





	1. Out of Time

Crowley burst into the bookshop, locking the doors behind him with a snap.

“Time’s up,” he told the startled Aziraphale.

“You’re lucky there were no customers,” he huffed.

“Angel, did you hear me?” Crowley repeated, making pointed eye contact. Aziraphale’s expression hardened,

“They’re coming for us, you mean?”

“I saw Dagon today, headed straight for me. She never comes up here, so it wasn’t hard to lose her, but,” he yanked his glasses off and stuffed them in a pocket, “that also means it’s serious.”

“Yes, I’ve been feeling more and more of them,” Aziraphale admitted. “I thought I might have even seen Gabriel across the street last week. Perhaps I was right.”

“I give it until the end of the week. Probably sooner.”

“Indeed.”

The world had nearly ended ten years ago now; a fair chunk of a human lifetime, but only a short holiday for an angel and a demon.

“Of course it was too good to last,” Crowley sighed, dropping onto the sofa.

“But we’ll fight them, won’t we?”

“All of heaven, all of hell, two of us? We haven’t got much chance, do we?” Crowley said, and for all the world he looked old, and so absolutely tired.

“I suppose not,” Aziraphale allowed, sitting down beside him. He laced their fingers together, “but I’ll be damned if I let you go without a fight.”

A smile lifted some of the resignation off Crowley’s face,

“And I’ll fight ‘em all for you, Angel.” he placed a kiss on Aziraphale’s forehead, “Though, you’re probably damned already.”

“Probably,” Aziraphale agreed. Crowley watched the angel for a moment before taking his face in both hands, 

“I love you,” he breathed, pulling Aziraphale into a kiss. He lingered there for a long moment, kissing Aziraphale as deeply as he could manage before pulling away. “Just in case,” he tried to explain, “if they—"

“Oh good lord,” Aziraphale scoffed, smiling, “that shouldn’t be necessary!” but the way his face fell as he looked away betrayed him.

It took three days for heaven and hell to truly catch up with them. Three days of close calls, dodging a team of demons here, a group of angels there, as they were steadily closing in and improving their tactics. Each call was closer than the last. It wasn’t until they were surrounded on both sides by both higher-ups and lower-downs that it began to truly feel inevitable; they weren’t getting out of this without a fight. And probably not even then.

They were standing on a busy street when they noticed their pursuers.

“They’re here,” Aziraphale mumbled, “maybe a block or two away in each direction.” 

“Angels in front, demons behind, what can you do?” Crowley sighed.

“Take a left,” Aziraphale concluded, stepping into the street, dodging oncoming traffic, Crowley stumbling behind. 

They wove down blocks and around buildings, slowly picking up speed as they felt the angels and demons closing in. They took shortcuts through restaurants and stores, and eventually broke into a run, sprinting down streets and pulling each other through sudden turns. They had a slight upper hand, having spent far longer in London than any of their pursuers, but there’s only so much a mental map can help you against powerful occult or celestial beings. 

Trying to dash down an alley they found Uriel and two lower-ranking angels blocking the path. Turning back, Dagon and two grimacing demons walled them off. As the angels and demons stepped closer, Crowley and Aziraphale backed into each other, gripping each other’s hand. There was nowhere else to run, god forbid anywhere to hide, as the two sides closed in.

Aziraphale turned around and pulled Crowley into a kiss. 

“I love you,” he told him, and Crowley could swear there were tears in his eyes. 

“Aziraphale—“ but there was only time for them to hold each other’s hand tight for a moment longer, before their respective sides caught them by the other arm and yanked them apart.


	2. Hell

Crowley was clapped in chains and locked away, abandoned in a grody room deep in hell, “until Lord Beelzebub could be bothered to punish him.” Plenty of time, then, to contemplate his imminent demise, leaning against a wall, hands cuffed behind his back. If they tried holy water again, that was it, but demons weren’t _quite_ that stupid. Beelzebub certainly wasn’t. No, it would likely be some torture and then discorporation, probably locking up his demonic form in some torture chamber somewhere for eternity, or simply casting him out into nothing (perhaps the nothingness of space, if he was lucky; he liked space). 

He wondered absently, as he waited, if he could feel Aziraphale through all the tumult of demons and humans. He shut his eyes and made a goal of that (better than counting ceiling tiles). He searched for a while, but he could barely fell humanity through all the demons, let alone any angels. Instead he set to humming through Queen’s discography from memory to pass the time (he knew it well enough after all the times the Bentley had played through it).

The door swung open with a bang and Crowley’s eyes snapped open.

“Hastur! How are you?” Crowley asked, giving the other demon a hollow grin. “Haven’t seen you since the whole armageddon business.” He grunted as Hastur’s fist connected with his face, and tried to shake some of the pain off before being taken out at the knees by a rough kick. 

“Not so impressive now, are you?” Hastur spat, “Mr. Big-shot. No human technology or angels to save you, can’t pull demonic miracles with blessed chains on you.”

“Maybe not,” Crowley retorted, managing to get his feet under him and swinging around to catch Hastur in the gut with his cuffed hands. “blessed chains’ll leave a mark on you, too, though,” he said, stumbling back. It was worth it, he thought, even as Hastur’s foot hit his gut, sending him back to the ground.

“If I ever see you again, it’ll be too soon,” Hastur snarled.

“The feeling’s mutual!” Crowley told his retreating back, as the door slammed and locked back behind him. All the more time to consider his fate, then. Now with a lovely bruise forming over his eye.

It had been a good 6,000 years, give or take. With at least a couple thousand of those years being spent occasionally going against hell (though he generally abided by the letter of the law, at least. If he wasn’t doing miracles for Aziraphale), it was only a matter of time. Demons might live forever, no one was yet sure, but demons that didn’t follow orders were bound to die one day. This had been inevitable from the first time he spoke to Aziraphale, really. Or at least since he saved those children from The Great Flood. He could stand to die now, if he had to. He didn’t want to die, but he could face facts. He had mastered the art of resignation. After all, that’s how he’d managed to swallow his feelings for Aziraphale all those years: he’d resigned himself to never getting anywhere with it.

That hadn’t been the case, though, in the end. The thought of Aziraphale’s hand in his, the angel’s smile, the overwhelming goodness of him, took over Crowley’s mind, and he felt the first real twinge of pain since starting to contemplate his end. He didn’t have regrets, facing death. Not really. But he would miss Aziraphale, if he could miss anything in whatever state they left him in.

When he was dragged in front of Beelzebub there were none of the crowds Aziraphale had told him about from his last trial. Just the lord of hell seated on their throne, Dagon, and the lower demon that had dragged him in.

“Lord Beelzebub,” he greeted them out of habit with a half-assed curtsey (the most he could do without losing his balance).

“Crowley. You’ve been mooching for too long,” they told him, “we’d rather dispose of you entirely, but seeing as that isn’t an option, you still must be dealt with.”

“Fun,” he responded. Best to be blasé in the face of doom. “How’s that going to look?”

“Release his wings,” Beelzebub ordered the demon who’d dragged him in. The demon shoved just the right spot on Crowley’s back, and he winced as his wings were forced out. Beelzebub gestured to Dagon, who took one of Crowley’s wings and snapped the bones in the two most painful and incapacitating places (he would know, they taught him how to do it, once). No matter how much he may’ve wanted to keep some remotely stoic facade, he cried out. It was impossible not to, the heat of tears building behind his eyes as she broke the other wing just the same. It took a lot simply to stay standing.

“You will be cut off,” Beelzebub told him, rising from their throne and stepping up to him, “no more power, no more miracles, nothing left.” They punched him in the stomach, knocking him to his knees for the second time that day. As they yanked their hand away it felt as though he was being yanked on by the Bentley’s g-forces, with the focal point as their hand. That is, if g-forces also stung like a hailstorm. His head began swimming horribly, bringing his vision in and out of focus, and he broke into a cold sweat. 

“What?” Crowley sneered, “You’ve made me _human_?” Beelzebub chuckled,

“No, that’d be too kind. You’ll keep your immortality, and get to spend an eternity all alone,” they growled. “After a few decades you’ll be begging for the freedom holy water might have given you.” They summoned up a heavy pipe and cracked it across his head, slamming him out of consciousness.


	3. Crowley

Crowley jerked to sitting, sprawled on the floor of his flat. At least they had the courtesy to drop him somewhere private, familiar. He scrambled to his feet, stumbling. His head still swum uncomfortably, stabbing pains all through the wings disguised in his back. 

“Aziraphale?” he asked, looking around. It was silly to think the angel would be there. He couldn’t find him. Everything around him was desperately silent, as if the world’s power had gone out, drawing attention to just how many low hums all the appliances gave off. Except the power was still blazing, but there was a gaping hole in Crowley’s existence. He couldn’t feel Aziraphale, only empty loneliness and that awful sickening feeling left over from whatever hell had done. 

Stepped over to his desk as best he could, and tried to use it to steady himself. He needed a plan of action. If he couldn’t feel Aziraphale, the angel wasn’t on earth. He could all but hear Beelzebub’s words, low and pointed, thick with vengeance: “eternity all alone.” If Aziraphale wasn’t on earth, he was— Crowley felt as though he might be sick. 

If Aziraphale wasn’t on earth, he was in heaven, and damn it— _bless_ it all, if Crowley had to get the angel back from heaven himself, he would.

He fumbled his way through the flat, searching for any suitable weapons. He wished he’d been better about collecting them over the years; now he could barely find anything. Usually he had hellfire, or miracles, but if Beelzebub was to be believed, none of that was an option. He didn’t exactly feel up to it, anyway, unable to fully steady the room around him, still irritatingly spinning. Not to mention the pains that shot through his back at the slightest shift and the throbbing in his head and gut.

The best he could come up with, he was very sorry to say, was a pocketknife. Plenty sharp, at least, and familiar. But a short range weapon. If he wanted to do any damage from afar he’d have one shot to throw the thing. Probably wasn’t worth it. So, not the best, but it would do. Fuck, he’d fight angels with his bare hands if he had to.

He nearly walked out the door without any glasses, and had to swing back around to fish a pair out of a desk drawer. But from there, with what little weaponry he had and a roaring fire stoked by vengeance and pain burning in his chest (or was that more damage hell had done?), he climbed in the Bentley and headed for heaven. The main entrance; subtlety be damned.

* * *

He marched into the office building, knife at the ready, and even a little bit more of a sway to his steps than usual. As he reached the escalator he sprinted up it, determined. He burst out onto a perfectly earthly second floor.

Crowley slowed to a stop and turned back. Nothing but escalator and office building behind him. Nothing but hall in front. He hesitated briefly; could a demon not get up to heaven? Not that they’d want to, but was that what was keeping him? He looked between the up and down escalators. Hell, then. He’d go back to hell, get more answers. 

He vaulted over a railing and dropped back down to the first floor, just barely managing to break the impact by rolling, and ending up sprawled out on the floor, the shockwaves of the impact pulsing painfully through his legs. At least the cold floor felt marginally better on his back. Well, after the burn of the impact. With some effort he got back to his feet, stumbling once or twice, and turned to the down escalator, knife brandished anew. He headed for it with great purpose, and tripped as soon as he hit the escalator, sending him crashing into the steps that spat him back out on the floor without mercy. 

He sat back, small against the escalators that now held no power other than earthly electricity. At least not for him.

“What did you do?” he wondered aloud, voice still tinged with fire. He tore off his glasses, cracked something awful in the fall. 

He couldn’t feel Aziraphale, and whether the angel was in heaven, or— or nowhere at all, he couldn’t get to him. While sitting still the multitude of pains descended on him again, and tears welled up in his eyes. He was empty, useless, and alone, only the cold tile for company. Aziraphale was gone. The tears rolled down his face, gaining momentum with each tear that fell. “You bastards,” he whimpered, “what did you do?”


	4. Heaven

Aziraphale was tied to a chair and left in an empty corner of heaven without a word. Nothing but white—walls, ceiling, floor—as far as his eyes could see. The cursed ropes around his wrists and ankles burned a bit, but nothing he couldn’t handle. This was it, he supposed. The end. For as many ways as he had tried to be a good angel all these years, he’d managed to be quite a bad angel in nearly as many ways (some of the ways were interchangeable, where the morals of heaven and humanity clashed). Still, he’d had a good run, he supposed. He didn’t really think he would change anything. Half the things that made him a bad angel he was rather proud of, especially saving the world. He’d never understood why humanity didn’t deserve being cared for, and, in the end, that had led him to do some of the things heaven was most upset about (namely giving away his sword and stopping the apocalypse).

Well, not counting loving Crowley. That had comparatively little to do with the greater good of humanity, and was absolutely one of the ways he had most appalled heaven. But he certainly didn’t regret loving the demon at all. Though, perhaps, as he thought of Crowley’s laugh, his ridiculous saunter, his wonderful habit of curling up beside Aziraphale and falling asleep, Aziraphale regretted having to leave the demon. It may not have quite been regret, even (after all, it’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all), but the thought of never seeing Crowley again hurt more than anything heaven could do, hellfire included.

Oh, christ, he hoped heaven didn’t know that. He especially hoped, as Micheal approached him, the only hint of color in the white expanse, that she didn’t know that.

“Aziraphale,” she stated by way of greeting.

“Micheal,” he replied, hesitant. 

“Gabriel’s time is in high demand, so I’ll be punishing you before we dispose of you properly.” For a moment Aziraphale tried to put the pieces together: that sounded like torture, and then what? Discorperation? Would they try hellfire again, just to be sure? Would he _fall_? but his attempts at predicting his fate were cut short as he noticed a shift in her professional demeanor, one corner of her mouth shifting up ever so slightly. A jolt of fear shot through him; she had always been fond of smiting demons and enacting divine punishment. And now she got to take it out on him.

She walked around him, and with a snap the chair disappeared out from under him, sending him crashing to the ground, though his cursed bonds held tight. She jabbed the toe of her boot into his back, forcing out his wings and a yelp of pain. She ran a contemplative hand down one wing, and he shuddered. He barely had time to truly feel the sense of foreboding before she snapped two of the bones. The pain was so sharp and quick he didn’t even manage to make a sound. She broke the other wing in the same two places, and it was just as quick and painful. The pain overwhelmed him, bringing tears to the edge of falling; he saw stars. A few strangled groans managed to fight their way past the pain and out of his throat as he fell forward, away from the feeling of knives in his wings. 

But Micheal wasn’t having that. She kicked him over onto his back, slamming his wings into the cold floor. He could barely tell if the scream he heard came from his voice, or the screaming pain that shot through him. Through the tears and the spots dancing in his vision he was just barely able to make up Micheal looking up before he heard,

“Let’s get this over with.” Gabriel. Aziraphale tried to sit up, see better what was happening, but Micheal kicked him back down, drowning him in a wave of pain all over again. “Having fun?” Gabriel asked her.

“Just doing my job,” she told him, but Aziraphale could swear he heard the smirk.

“Alright, Aziraphale,” Gabriel said, looking down at him. “I’m sorry it’s come to this.” No, he wasn’t.

“Now what?” Aziraphale bothered to ask, “Am I going to fall?” the idea wasn't actually so troubling. It would hurt, probably, but other than that—

“Ugh, I wish!” Gabriel shrugged good-naturedly, “But downstairs doesn’t want to have to deal with you either, and it’s way too much trouble. I’d love to just kill you, but apparently that doesn’t work, so this’ll have to do.”

With some hesitance Aziraphale sat back up, only for Gabriel to lift him off the ground by the collar of his shirt. His wings twitched reflexively, painfully, no help at all.

“You’ve really been a pain in our ass these last couple of decades,” Gabriel mused, dangling Aziraphale a few inches off the ground. “really an awful angel.” with that he dropped him, and as Aziraphale collapsed to the ground he felt the sickening weightlessness of free fall, even as he hit the floor. Like a plane dropping out of the air, if that plane was on fire. He was left shaky and feverish, his arms trembling under his own weight.

“What did you do?” he had to ask; what was driving these sensations? What did heaven consider a punishment comparable to, if not worse than, death?

“Cut you off from heaven,” Gabriel told him. “no more miracles, magic, angels. No more coming back. You’ll be stuck on earth to live out eternity, alone and powerless. Pretty good, huh?” he nudged Micheal, expression zipping from serious business to obnoxious grin in a nanosecond. 

“Almost as good as hellfire,” she agreed.

“So long, Aziraphale,” he concluded, “we’d better not see you again or, well,” he let out a heartless, businessman chuckle, “we’ll have to see if that hellfire thing wasn’t just a fluke.” And with a swift knee to the chin, Aziraphale was catapulted into blackness.


	5. Aziraphale

Aziraphale hit the floor of the bookshop, hard, face-first, and for a moment he simply lay there. He was still shaking, and feverish, and generally achey. So many aches.Not to mention the stabbing pains in his back. He would lie here for a moment, thank you. Try and get his wits about him. 

Though it was hard to come to your senses when you seemed to be missing one. There was a particular hush, a silence, that had settled around him after the violence of heaven. It was unsettling. Isolating. The bookshop seemed a soundproof chamber locked off from the world, leaving Aziraphale alone.

_Alone_.

Aziraphale struggled up to sitting, leaning against a particularly stable stack of books. He couldn’t find Crowley, couldn’t feel the demon anywhere. Tears threatened to overtake him again. If he couldn’t find Crowley on earth, then…

Then he had to still be in hell. Crowley was stuck in hell, (he had to be, the alternative was utterly unbearable) and Aziraphale would find him, God as his witness. Assuming God had any interest in him at all anymore. He got to his feet, cautiously, and looked around the room. He couldn’t go down to hell empty handed, if he could get down there at all. They said he couldn’t go back to heaven, but they didn’t say anything about hell, and he at least had to _try_. After some consideration he shuffled over to a particular corner of the shop and felt around for what he was looking for.

As he drew the sword down from a high shelf the reach pulled at his hidden wings in some very awful ways. He only just managed not to drop the weapon. It was essentially a gag gift Crowley had gotten him a year after the not-pocalypse, “Never know when you might need one,” he’d said, “if I knew a way to keep it in flames I would.” It was a joke, really, but one of those jokes that’s funny because it’s true. His hand shook under the weight of the sword, and holding a gift from Crowley stung, just a bit, knowing Crowley might not… But on the plus side, the sword was just tall enough that it wasn’t bad as a makeshift walking stick to help support his weight. He could make it to the main entrance without much trouble. Probably.

* * *

He steeled himself as he burst into the office building, wielding the sword and demanding his limbs shake as little as possible. He was ready, prepared to face all the forces of hell.

But he didn’t have to. He drew up short, only a few feet through the door. There was pile of black clothes with a shock of red hair sitting sprawled at the base of the escalators. 

“Crowley?” he asked. He couldn’t be sure, still couldn’t feel the demon, but—

“Aziraphale?” as he turned back to look at him, there was no doubt. “Aziraphale!” Crowley hauled himself up onto his feet with some effort, and they dashed over to each other, sword and knife tossed aside, forgotten. Crowley stumbled, and Aziraphale caught him, the weight and momentum of the fall pulling them both down to the floor. Aziraphale held him close, and almost as tightly as the demon clung to him, face buried in Aziraphale’s shoulder. As tears welled up in Aziraphale’s eyes, feeling the whiplash from fearing Crowley might be gone forever to holding him close, he realized he wasn’t the only one: Crowley was sobbing.

“What’s wrong, my dear?” Aziraphale asked, trying to coax Crowley’s face out of his shoulder with a little bit of success (but just a little), “What did they do to you?”

“Are you really you?” Crowley asked, so much desperation in his eyes it hurt, “I still can’t _find_ you,”

“Yes, it’s really me, I promise,” he told him, a hesitant tear or two starting to fall, “I- I can’t feel you either, but who else could you be?”

“It just seems like another dirty trick they might play,” Crowley said, shaking his head. Admittedly, Aziraphale wouldn't put it past Micheal, but surely the damage was done. Would they even think to add such insult to injury?

"I suppose so,” Aziraphale said, “but they wouldn’t know you have nice, red, fuzzy socks for cold days.”

A couple of quiet laughs made it past Crowley’s tears.

“Or that you have no mercy in your infinite angelic heart for moths.”

“Only if they’re in the shop!” Aziraphale retorted, “and it may not be so angelic a heart anymore.” his smile faltered and Crowley’s face fell.

“What did they do to you?” he asked, one fist tightening in Aziraphale’s coat.

"Nothing I can’t survive,” he assured him. “but you, what did they—“

“Doesn’t matter now,” Crowley insisted, pulling close to Aziraphale again. For a moment they sat in the expanse of the lobby, clinging to one another.

“Should we go home, dear?” Aziraphale broke the silence. Crowley only nodded.


	6. Epilogue

Crowley was not known to have trouble sleeping. He’d been known to sleep for years at a time, but even after the awful day he’d had, he only slept for a few hours. Perhaps it was the stabbing pain in his back that woke him up, or a continuing uneasiness. Eyes still shut, blind to the world, he still felt that awful emptiness inside him; no sense of where Aziraphale was, or any angel or demon. But then, as the numbness of sleep faded, fingers twitching, he found hands holding tight to his own.

He opened his eyes to Aziraphale’s face. The angel was still dead asleep, still entirely dressed (they’d practically walked in and passed out), but the warmth of the early morning sun and of Aziraphale chased his worries back. As much as they could be chased away, at any rate. He suspected everything was alright. At least for now. He was alive, and Aziraphale was here with him (or perhaps he was more accurately here with Aziraphale, above the angel’s bookshop), and he really couldn’t ask for anything better.

Scratch that; this was all very good, but he was stiff as heav—hel— _shit_ , and his wings still felt awful. He hadn’t moved in hours, not about to roll over on his poor, hidden wings, and he needed to move, dammit. He gave Aziraphale one more good look before carefully untangling his own arms from his. He climbed out of bed, more careful than he may ever have been before, between not wanting to wake Aziraphale and his aching wings, and went to wander the bookshop.

* * *

Aziraphale noticed the sharp pain in his back first, being dragged unwillingly back to consciousness. It took barely a moment, though, for him to register the empty numbness in his being, a particular deafness to ethereal (and occult) forces. He could barely feel anything. He couldn’t feel _Crowley_.

Another twinge in his wings brought the terror of the past day crashing down on him, and his eyes shot open, finding only an empty bed. He shot upright, back protesting horribly.

“Crowley?” he asked, attention zipping around the room. His heart rate was rising fast, “Crowley?!”

* * *

The book Crowley was holding hit the ground while the shout was still hanging in the air. He bolted back to Aziraphale’s side, stumbling as he burst into the room.

“What’s wrong?” he gasped, steadying himself on the doorway.

“Oh, dear, I’m so sorry,” Aziraphale said, embarrassment painted all over his face as he took in Crowley’s breathless, bedraggled state. “I just couldn’t find you, and I, well…”

“Panicked,” Crowley finished for him, joining him back on the bed, “of course. I should’ve thought of that.” he rested his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder.

“No, no, don’t worry dear, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Aziraphale ran a hand through Crowley’s hair.

“Can’t help that I’m still tense,” Crowley chuckled, “might not relax for years, at this rate. But, how are you?” he asked, looking back up.

“Oh, sore, certainly. In some pain. I'm still trying to make sense of the idea of being ‘cut off’ from heaven.”

“Cut off?” Crowley echoed.

“Yes, that’s what they called it. No coming back, no miracles, no power. Just, stuck on earth—“

“—All alone. Forever.”

“Yes, exactly. Did hell do the same to you?” Aziraphale asked.

“Well, they didn’t give it a name, but that does sound familiar.” had heaven and hell delivered the same punishments? Did that mean—

Aziraphale tried to stretch and flinched, accidentally letting slip a tiny yelp of pain.

“Your wings,” Crowley’s eyes went wide, “what did they do to you?”

“I’m sure I can dress them properly, keep them from healing back too poorly. If worst comes to worst I can live without flying again.”

“Maybe— maybe I can help. Can’t hurt to have an extra pair of hands, can it?”

“I suppose not. Perhaps letting them out will help as well, somehow.” Aziraphale winced as his wings unfurled, and Crowley found himself staring (not hard to do, when you barely blink, but this was something different).

“Your wings,” he breathed. The unnatural bends turned his stomach, and the few splatters of dried blood didn’t help, but he was even further disoriented by the color: no longer stark white, Aziraphale’s wings were now the soft grey of a cloudy winter sky.

“Oh, that might be a little better,” Aziraphale noted, shifting cautiously. Then he registered Crowley’s expression. “What about—? Oh!” he caught a glimpse of his feathers, “How strange,” he turned to Crowley, face full of confused questions. 

Gripped with curiosity and a need to at least feel a slightly different pain in his wings, Crowley released his own. Aziraphale’s eye widened, as Crowley’s probably had, before zeroing in on a point he suspected was a break.

“Oh no, dear—“

“Like you said, they’ll probably heal,” Crowley shrugged it off, though he didn’t dare literally shrug, not sure what that jostle would do to the injuries. He looked back and found his own feathers were no longer inky black, but the dark grey of growing storm clouds on the horizon. “Wild,” he muttered. But he was getting off track, he had to see if he could so something, anything to help Aziraphale. Apparently the angel (former angel?) had the same idea, and they each reached, carefully, for one of the other’s wings. 

In an instant Crowley felt simultaneously better, free of a little of the sharp pain in his wings, and as though he’d done about 20 push-ups (and he’d never had anything close to a gym membership in all his 6,000 years). Aziraphale was the first to ask,

“What just happened?”

“I hoped you knew,” Crowley retorted, turning to face him.

“Did you heal my wing?” 

“Did I?!”

“I think you might have!”

“Then, did you—?” Crowley glanced back at his own wing, a little less bent, a little less painful. He turned back to Aziraphale, “That’s a miracle.”

“It is,” he breathed. “Oh! It is! I shouldn’t be able to do that,” he realized, regarding his hands with a newfound awe and confusion.

“Neither should I, cut off from hell.”

“Cut off from heaven, then, where do you suppose the power comes from?” they stared at each other for a moment, stunned, befuddled. Their attention slowly gravitated up to the ceiling, or, rather, beyond it.

“You don’t suppose…?” Crowley muttered.

“She’s quite ine—“

“Don’t say it,” Crowley said, looking back to Aziraphale, chuckling in spite of himself. “Not that again.”

“Sorry.”

“Maybe heaven or hell just keep it from feeling like work to do that sort of thing,” he mused, regarding his own hand. “Then again, I’ve already felt like I was hit by a freight train for the past several hours.”

Aziraphale was still looking up, lost in thought.

“Crowley,” he finally said, attention pulling back to earth, “I think we really are on our own side. We’re free.”

Crowley stared at his angel (maybe not angelic anymore, but still the best angel, his angel). Cut loose from every authority they’d ever known, cast out into the world neither heaven nor hell understood, but where they’d made their home long ago. They were here, together, and (comparatively) safe. Crowley gripped Aziraphale’s hand,

“We’re free.”


End file.
